Ireland v New Zealand: Irish in need of a morale-boosting performance against All Blacks

And now the moment of truth. All week Ireland’s squad and management have been
insisting there is no crisis of confidence in the squad after a run of just
one win in seven matches and two nervous performances this autumn against
South Africa and Samoa, albeit they did beat the latter.

The faithful badly want to believe them but these are stressed times in Ireland, where the politicians were also on the television 24/7 earlier this week bristling with supreme confidence and dismissing the very notion that the country needed a bail-out by the European Union. And look what happened there.

In truth Declan Kidney’s team are working their way through a difficult patch following the Grand Slam of 2009 and indeed last autumn, when they beat the Springboks and drew with Australia.

But, unlike the economy, Ireland’s rugby team could definitely recover quickly given the encouragement of a morale-boosting performance against New Zealand, although a first win over the All Blacks is surely too much to ask for?

Not according to Ireland’s pugnacious hooker, Rory Best, yesterday. “Big players will arise again against New Zealand,” insisted the Ulsterman.

“We have a lot of experience. There’s Heineken Cup winners with two different provinces, we’ve won grand slams, Magners Leagues. People have dealt with big games before.

“We’ve proved that against everyone else except New Zealand that we can beat them and we can rise to the big occasion.

"We have looked long and hard at ourselves after the last two games and believe we can produce a better result than any Ireland team has ever produced against New Zealand.

"And a victory is something that would give everyone a big lift throughout the island, to do something that had never been done.”

What Ireland really need is a spark of inspiration from somewhere. They will have to produce something very special just to live with the All Blacks let alone seriously contest the issue.

Sonny Bill Williams might not be starting but Ma’a Nonu, perhaps feeling a little neglected, will be fired up as he tries to reassert his right to the midfield spot alongside Conrad Smith.

Dan Carter is just 20 points short of Jonny Wilkinson’s world record of 1,178 international points.

And leading the team on to the field will be Richie McCaw and Mils Muliaina on the occasion of the duo jointly breaking Sean Fitzpatrick’s record of 92 Test match appearances for the All Blacks. Every indication suggests that Ireland will find the Kiwis even more revved up than normal.

With Brad Thorn injured, New Zealand’s second-row pairing of Tom Donnelly and Anthony Boric is not one that has yet stamped its mark on world rugby and although Hika Elliot enjoyed a fine international debut at hooker against the Scots last week, this is still only his second cap.

Against England and Scotland, New Zealand have been adequate rather than outstanding at scrum-time so far this autumn, and have conceded more than their fair share of penalties.

That might just be an avenue Ireland explore although, frankly, if New Zealand start dominating a game scrums quickly become a side issue.